The Single-Payer Debate: Dr Patricia Salber Interviews Dr Don Berwick

Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, and Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, discuss the idea of a single-payer system and misconceptions about the concept, and what individual states are doing.

Despite efforts by Republicans to scale back the Affordable Care Act, there is another movement to push the healthcare industry further left and into a single-payer system.

In the latest Managed Care Cast, Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, president emeritus and senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a former administrator of CMS, and Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, of The Doctor Weighs In, discuss the idea of a single-payer system and misconceptions about the concept, such as that it means the government will run healthcare. Some countries have chosen government-run healthcare in addition to a single-payer system, but the United States has been discussing a single-payer environment, which is a discussion around payment, not care delivery.

They also speculate on the steps of getting from the current multipayer system in the United States to a single-payer system and what individual states are doing to investigate the possibility of setting up a single-payer system.